‘False Positive’ | Movie Review

Ilana Glazer plays a hopeful mother-to-be Lucy, who is going through IVF with the help of her Doctor husband Adrian (Justin Theroux), and his Office’s main Gynecologist Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). Once the IVF becomes successfully completed, Lucy is given an impossible choice that sends her into a spiral, causing her reality to bend, her most trusted people hiding secrets, and a possible supernatural force that threatens her chance at a family.

A24 delivers us another psychological thriller that is dealing with the real horror of IVF, the fear and uncertainty of childbirth and pregnancy, and the history of how the world has treated pregnant women throughout time. This means that there are going to be some themes that depending on what side you are on politically will determine if you like this film or not.

The first act of the movie’s suspense is built really well, and you are immediately placed in a world where subtext is dialogue and never really gets followed up on. The characters in this world all feel soulless in the beginning, even Lucy who has dreams and goals with her career and personal life, is never in a place of calm when pregnant. It’s only when the second act kicks in that Lucy is activated, and Ilana Glazer delivers an incredible performance. She also wrote this and you can tell she knows her character as if she was her.

Pierce Morgan is in a different role than he is usually playing but does it flawlessly in this. I would love to see him doing more roles like this in the future. Justin Theroux really never stands out to me in his performances, and in this he is given more to do but it just feels too wooden, but that could be the point.

The biggest issue with the film is in its stories and hiding the mystery through the dialogue. I’m not sure if the writers realized how mustache-twirly some characters were, and how out of place certain lines are that for me, made me immediately call the ending of the movie. Nobody wants to know the surprise before it happens, and this feels way too easy to decipher.

Overall, ‘False Positive’ isn’t the best from A24 but a heavy hitting performance from Ilana Glazer will make the watch more than worth it, provided again, you know what you are getting into. Check this out on Hulu this week!